


This Is Me

by BluePlanetTrash



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Angst, Comfort/Angst, Dads of Marmora (Voltron), Fluff, Galra Keith (Voltron), Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Sick Character, Sick Keith (Voltron), Sickfic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-12
Updated: 2018-01-12
Packaged: 2019-03-03 18:22:21
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,426
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13346880
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BluePlanetTrash/pseuds/BluePlanetTrash
Summary: When Keith passed out during a mission debrief, the team was understandably worried about him. When he started turning purple, they were even more so. Luckily, they have just the person to comfort and explain what was happening to him.





	This Is Me

Anyone of the paladins would tell you that mission briefing and debriefing were the most boring parts about being in Voltron. However, it was a vital part of their mission to take down Zarkon and were always attentive during the proceedings. Because of this, it was easy to tell that Keith’s attention was elsewhere during that particular debriefing. They had just come back from defending one of their allied planets and were deciding on what their nest move would be.

“Keith? Are you paying attention?” Shiro asked when he looked over and saw Keith staring fixedly at the table in front of him. His head shot up and his eyes widened before he frantically nodded his head. Obviously, Shiro was worried, it wasn’t like Keith to get distracted during these meetings but he also had to trust what he was saying. He turned back to the holoscreen and opened his mouth to begin again.

“Keith!?” Lance’s worried voice rang out after a crack echoed through the room. Shiro spun around and saw Keith’s head on the table, worryingly still. He ran around the table and gently pulled him up from the table.

“Keith?” He called trying to rouse him. He only groaned quietly and slumped slightly in Shiro’s arms.

“Quickly, bring him to the med bay,” Coran demanded leading them out the doors. Shiro quickly obeyed and hulled Keith up into his arms and followed after them. He was slightly confused when he arrived and saw Coran setting up a bed for him instead of prepping a pod.

“We don’t know what’s happened to Keith yet, with you and Lance it was easy to tell but if we just blindly throw him in it may do more harm than good,” Coran explained at Shiro’s searching look. He simply nodded and laid him down gently on the blankets and stepped back slightly as Coran started examining him.

“Is he going to be okay?” Hunk asked as he, Lance, and Pidge stood beside Shiro.

“I believe so, however his temperature is awfully high for what you’ve told me about humans, it may be the reason why he fainted,” Coran informed them as his eyes moved over the screens. They looked at each other with relieved smiles.

“So he just has a cold then?” Pidge asked.

“That could be the case, but the five of you could have also come into contact with some sort of virus that humans aren’t immune to,” Coran said mournfully. They crowded around Keith’s bed, the flush on his skin now painfully obvious in the lights of the med bay.

“Is there anything we can do to help?” Lance asked.

“I’m afraid that I’m not an expert on human physiology so I believe the four of you will be the best suited to take care of him. I can, however, help you around the med bay and with whatever you need to help Keith,” Coran answered with a sad shake of his head.

“Yeah, that sounds about right,” Pidge sighed leaning against the bed.

“Well, let’s get to work then,” Hunk declared. The rest of them straightened up and nodded in determination.

* * *

It was obvious to all of them that they wouldn’t be leaving Keith’s side until he got better. Before they got back Coran changed Keith into a loose shirt and pants. They decided to collect as many blankets and pillows as they could and camp around Keith’s bed. That way they would be able to keep an eye on him in case he went downhill. Unfortunately, that’s exactly what happened and they woke up to the sound of Keith screaming. They jolted up and stumbled over to the bed to see Keith sweating profusely and writhing around. His eyes were half open and glazed over as his head thrashed around.

“Keith, are you okay?” Shiro asked laying his hand on Keith’s forehead. He only shook his head side to side, muttering unintelligently about nothing.

“Pidge, Lance go find Allura and Coran, we need to find some way to cool him down,” Shiro said pointing to the two of them. They nodded and quickly scurried out of the room.

“Hunk, I need you to keep him from trashing, he might hurt himself,” Hunk went to his side and firmly held him down.

“Sorry buddy,” he said quietly when Keith let out a frustrated groan. He started petting back Keith’s hair away from his face. He let out a quiet sigh of relief when he saw Keith’s eyes slide open slowly. Shiro stumbled back when Keith shot up, his mouth was clenched closed and sweat started streaming quicker down his forehead. Without a second to lose, Hunk shoved one of the bay’s trashcans under Keith’s chin right before he began to vomit. He weakly pushed the can away from himself and sunk back on the pillows behind him.

Instead of holding him down again, they began trying to wipe the sweat off of his face and arms, hovering over him nervously as his eyelids fluttered. He looked over at the door as Lance and Pidge led in Allura and Coran. Immediately, Coran got to work looking over Keith’s vitals and looking through the supplies for something to cool him down.

“Um, Coran?” Pidge’s nervous voice called. He looked over his shoulder to see them nervously looking down at Keith. He rushed over to see him trembling violently in his sleep. With wide eyes, he noticed that Keith’s face was slowly darkening purple.

“He can’t breathe!” Lance cried in alarm. Coran tilted his head back intending to open his airway, but noticed that his chest was still moving up and down without any trouble.

“No, that’s not it,” he said, reaching over to place a calming hand on Lance’s shoulder.

“Whats happening?” Shiro asked, his eyes slightly widened. He was more nervous then he had ever seen before. Coran only shook his head and leaned over the bed to examine him further. He let out a small gasp when he saw a small dribble of blood coming out of the corner of Keith’s mouth and quickly pried it open.

“I think I understand now,” he announced as he looked at the sharpening points of his teeth.  They had grown longer and slightly pierced the inside of his lip. He turned to look at Allura.

“We must contact Kolivan immediately,” he said. She nodded her head and headed out towards the bridge of the Castle. He turned back to see the other paladins watching him anxiously.

“I believe that Keith may be going through a Galra transformation,” he explained, leaning back to let them see the points of his teeth.

“Will he be okay?” Hunk asked, keeping his eyes on Keith. Coran shook his head, relaxing his hold on his jaw and gently pulling the blankets up again.

“I’m not sure, I’m hoping that Kolivan will be able to shed more light on this,” he sighed. Their shoulders slumped slightly before they sat around Keith’s bed, determined to wait out his sickness. Coran smiled as he left the med bay to join Allura on the bridge.

A short time later, they felt the ship go through a wormhole jump and occasionally glanced at the door, waiting for Allura to walk through with Kolivan or one of the other Blades. They weren’t disappointed and the large figure of the leader walked in behind Allura and his eyes immediately went to the figure laying on the bed.

Their eyes shot over to Keith when a high pitched whine escaped from his mouth. His head tilted towards the door and Kolivan was quickly making his way over him. The galra let out a deep rumble as he stood beside the bed and pet his hand over Keith’s hair. In response, a small, broken purr came from Keith and pushed his head closer to Kolivan’s palm.

“He seems to finally be going through his galra transformation,” Kolivan informed, at their inquisitive gazes.

“What do you mean?” Coran asked, stepping up beside him.

“Every galra is born with an appearance close to humans, but slowly over their childhood their features change to those of a grown galra. His transformation must have delayed, it may be because of his human half,”

“What does that mean for Keith?” Shiro asked.

“I imagine that he is going to go through his entire transformation all at once, I’m not sure, I’ve never seen a transformation that was delayed for this long,” he mused thoughtfully, massaging the top of Keith’s head. He was the only one that didn’t flinch when Keith rapidly started growing fur where his skin had turned purple.

“I can take care of him,” he informed them. Coran and Allura both nodded their heads and started to head out of the room before they looked back to see the paladins hunkering down in their blankets again.

“We’d much rather be with Keith right now,” Shiro told them, as he reached his hands behind his head, comfortably sinking into the blankets beneath him. Coran and Allura glanced at each other but shrugged and left them behind.

Throughout the rest of the night, Keith would blearily wake up with a cry and Kolivan would comfort him with a rumble and a careful hand through the hair on his head or the freshly grown fur on his cheeks. He brushed away tears that collected in the fur around his ears and soothed him through the pain.

When ears started growing on top of his head, Keith’s hand reached out and snagged in the cloth of Kolivan’s clothes. He whimpered and his new claws cut into the material making his hand fall from the leader. He was quick to pick up the hand in his own, completely encompassing it and rubbing circles on the back of it. He let him squeeze his hand as spasms travelled through his body.

Keith let out a loud sob before he jolted up into sitting. Kolivan looked at him in surprise and caught him before he fell back onto the bed. He grimaced and kept Keith’s hands in a tight grip, before they could start searching for the origin of the pain. Obviously, he was a feline subspecies galra and it was more than likely that a tail was causing his pain. Even as Keith let out a warbling cry, he kept his grip firm. He had seen many young cubs chew off their tails before they developed fully, trying to put an end to the pain. He couldn’t imagine how painful it would be to grow an adult-sized tail either, especially at the rate that Keith was. Keith trembled violently in his arms, blinking tears out of his eyes as he squinted at the blanket still strewn over his legs.

Although his transformation wasn’t completely finished yet, there were already so many differences between them. Most obviously, he was covered head to toe in light purple fur and had big ears twitching slightly on top of his head. His nose appeared to have changed as well and looked similar to the end of a cat’s, not unlike Kolivan’s. He looked down as he felt something brush against his leg. It was his tail. It was the same light purple colour as his fur, except for the dark tuft at the end of it, which was the same dark colour of his hair. Which a small smile, he thought that it looked similar to Antok’s tail.

Keith’s body became limp as his trembling finally came to a stop. Kolivan sighed and gently turned Keith on his side in case his tail was still sensitive. He pulled the blankets up to Keith’s chin and stepped back, careful to not step on any of the paladins as they slept around them. He wasn’t sure how they had slept through Keith’s cries but he suspected that it was because they weren’t instinct driven like a galra to answer them. He leaned on the back wall of the med bay and crossed his arms. He had done his part, now it was up to the team to comfort him when he woke up.

* * *

Keith blinked open his eyes the next day. All he remembered of the past day was being uncomfortably hot and shooting pains travelling throughout his entire body.

“Keith? Are you with us?” A voice asked. He blearily looked towards the voice and slowly blinked his eyes. After a few moments, he focused on Shiro’s face.

“Shiro?” He asked quietly. Shiro smiled and nodded quickly.

“How are you feeling?”

“Fine, I think. What happened?”

“Yesterday, you got really sick and well…” Hunk trailed off, looking helplessly at the rest of the group. Keith glanced at each of them, waiting for an explanation.

“Well?” He prompted. They avoided making eyes contact with him as they tried to come up with the words to explain to him.

“What?!” He growled annoyed, his ears and tail twitching in annoyance.

Wait.

His hands shot up to his head and pressed down on his ears. He looked down and saw his tail laying beside him on the bed. With a jolt, he noticed the fur covering his skin and his arms shot away from his body.

“What’s happening?” He asked weakly. They all looked behind themselves and for the first time, he noticed that Kolivan was in the room.

“You’ve gone through your galra transformation,” he said for an explanation as he pushed himself off of the wall. He stepped up, quietly rumbling the entire time. It was obvious the effect that it had on Keith as he quickly became more relaxed. He carefully explained what happened since he came onto the ship, making sure that Keith had understood what happened to him. They watched him nervously as he absorbed the information and stared down at his furry hands.

“Are you good?” Lance asked laying his hand on Keith’s shoulder. Surprisingly, Keith didn’t shake it off and instead looked up at him. He heaved a long sigh but nodded his head.

“I’m good,” he said quietly. Lance nodded but didn’t move his hand. After a few minutes of thinking, Keith looked up at Kolivan. His ears were pressed against the top of his head and he lightly bit his lip in nervousness.

“Would you be able to help me? I don’t know anything about being galra,” he admitted, unconsciously his hand curled in the material of Kolivan’s shirt again. Kolivan huffed and gave him a small smile. His hand came down to ruffle his hair.

“I’d be honoured,”

**Author's Note:**

> Come visit me at my Tumblr too!: https://blueplanettrash.tumblr.com/


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